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[Randomizer]

I am having extreme difficulty getting my military Dwarfs to spar when I assign them to train in a barracks.  I went in scheduling and set the minimum number of dwarfs to train to 2.  They are all on active duty and in the same squad.  All they do is crowd in the barracks and do individual training.

[PatrikLundell]

They won't start sparring until they've reached some minimum skill level, which can be gained through individual training and demonstrations.

[Fleeting Frames]

As far as minimum skill level goes....

1. Embark with 2 Competent Fighter dwarves and 2 logs.

2. Put the dwarves in squad, set the squad to active/training, build a carpenter, make armor stand, build armor stand and set it as barracks for the squad.

3. Second-day sparring (need to wait until dayroll to go active in military).

Though I've seen adequate fighter dwarf sparring with a competent one before after combat is finished.

PS: If they don't do demonstrations either, I'd assume the squad isn't active.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Ignore the "set minimum to 2". That's weird advice that either does nothing or directly prevents dwarves from training properly. Might have been an override for a bug once? Not sure.

[mounf]

Ignore the "set minimum to 2". That's weird advice that either does nothing or directly prevents dwarves from training properly. Might have been an override for a bug once? Not sure.

I've generally used, for initial training, squads of 2. Assuming a couple of migrants with basic weapon skills from the first wave are put straight into training when they arrive scheduled to train 2 out of every 3 months they will be good enough stats to start sparring in the second year (individual combat drills are slow). Once they start sparring they should be very competent by year 3, which is usually when my first delivery of goblins turn up. As long as they have reasonable weapons and armour they can deal with most early threats (except hooved werebeasts) earlier than this.

If I need a strong military quicker:

1. Embark with 2 Competent Fighter dwarves and 2 logs.

2. Put the dwarves in squad, set the squad to active/training, build a carpenter, make armor stand, build armor stand and set it as barracks for the squad.

3. Second-day sparring (need to wait until dayroll to go active in military).

They don't go straight to sparring for me, though they get there in a few months - which skills do you start with?

Once I've got sufficient weapon-masters, I'll switch to main squads with legendary dwarfs only and training squads with one or 2 legendaries (pick the ones that are good teachers) and a bunch of newbies. With the number to train being about 70% of the squad size (to allow for a few to have wondered off to do unimportant things like sleep). Multiple minimum 2 training orders might help the front line squads train.

For marksdwarfs, I generally want them all at the butts practicing so this does not apply (unless I'm cross training them to give them a chance at survival when they inevitably charge a forgotten beast).

[Fleeting Frames]

1. Embark with 2 Competent Fighter dwarves and 2 logs.

That's all that's needed - just tested it and still works:
||

E: Out of interest timed it; by summer both hit Skilled Fighter/Competent Discipline/Adequate Observer/Novice Wrestler/Novice Striker/Dabbling Dodger, with one also getting dabbling armor user and kicker, over 28 pages of sparring. They still drill a fair bit, and due having no armor the pucnhes one lands grants no armor use exp on other, but the start by sparring is there.

[HungThir]

Ignore the "set minimum to 2". That's weird advice that either does nothing or directly prevents dwarves from training properly. Might have been an override for a bug once? Not sure.

you want the minimum to be at least 2, so that dwarves scheduled for training have someone to spar with

and you want the minimum to be less than 10, so that you can simply leave all your squads set to training/active all year (no micromanaging of training schedules), but still have your military dwarves working or socialising as needed

if your population is big enough to support a standing military of full-time soldiers with no other labours, the default "minimum 10" is probably fine, but few forts can spare the dwarfpower in the early years -- but you do wanna get them training (at least a little) asap

i usually start at "minimum 2 training" when i first assign a melee squad, increase it to 4-6 once it has 10 members, and then just leave it there

crossbow squads stay at "minimum 2" on training, even when they're full, cause by the time i have 10 marksdwarves i usually have ramparts for them to patrol as well:  2 training, 4-6 on patrol, 2-4 free to socialise/craft/etc

[edit: patrolling ramparts is useful for spotting werecreatures and ambushes before they reach your gates, and also ends up being a bunch of free training cause they'll take potshots at any birds/etc that pass by]

[delphonso]

The minimum 1 thing must be a mythical bug fix because I've done it as long as I can remember and don't know why I do it.

Making squads of two supposedly will encourage more sparring. I haven't tested it explicitly, but it seems to reduce the demonstration frequency.

[anewaname]

You can create multiple entries in the schedule for training, like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This is useful to encourage some marksdwarfs in the squad to use archery targets, and the others will train together (sparring, demonstrations, etc).

To encourage sparring, I recall setting several "Train, 3 minimum", but I last did this in 44.nn.

[Shizmoo]

Is the best thing to do is throw a veteran with high teacher to raw recruits?

[delphonso]

I don't think that leads to a lot of sparring. In my experience, veterans with rookies do a lot of demonstrations. Two rookies seem more likely to spar.

[PatrikLundell]

But in terms of learning, having a good veteran teacher is probably the best. I don't see sparring as an end, but a means to an end. It might be that sparring has a different emphasis on what the participants learn, though.

[upsetpanini1337]

I've found out that when a dwarf reaches at least novice in what could be considered a weapon skill (not things that affect a weapon roll, like Fighter, Observer or such like) they'll spar with anyone who also has novice skill. Striker counts for this, too, but that might only work with dwarves that are legitimately considered wrestlers (i.e uniform w/o weapon).

I could just be a massive dunderhead who doesn't know what he's talking about, but it worked for me! Make sure your barracks is small so they'll have an easier time finding sparring partners (might be BS, pls confirm).

[Sarmatian123]

My schedule for squad is train 2 all year with exception of 1-2 month when all 10 will train. They spar with no issues.
The thing with sparring is, it generates an enormous log, which can be issue if you want to browse after something in 100 mb text log. Imho reports log and announcement log should be separated. In game you will notice Dwarves sparring, when your announcement screen goes from 30+ pages to 1 page and sometimes 2 pages long.

[Fleeting Frames]

@upsetpanini1337: Test embark, 2 novice axedwarves: no sparring in first month, only individual combat drills. Which mirrors my previous tests with competent ones. (After more than month, they got to doing axe demonstrations. No spars before summer, at which point necros attacked)